Corrick Brown

"Corrick Brown is the real thing: a conductor who leads, a musician who inspires," said Los Angeles Times critic Daniel Carriaga after Brown’s debut in the L.A. Music Center. After 38 years as the second music director of the Santa Rosa Symphony, a distinguished career that included conducting most of the works of Mahler, Bruckner and Stravinsky, Corrick Brown chose a partial retirement as Conductor Laureate in 1995. He is currently Conductor Emeritus.

After graduating from Stanford University, he did graduate work at the University of California, studying with Manfred Bukhofzer, Roger Sessions and the Griller Quartet. At the Vienna Academy, he worked with Hans Swarowsky, in the class with such luminaries as Zubin Mehta and Claudio Abbado. Later he continued his studies with Dr. Richard Lert, the former conductor of the Berlin Opera.

Brown guest conducted orchestras in California, Spain, Austria, Germany, Italy and Turkey. His performance of MacDowell and Ives and the Brahms Second Symphony in Baden-Baden in 1991 brought the following from the German critics: “Joy in music he not only conveyed to his musicians, but also to the audience who thanked him with sustained applause.” —Bad Tagblatt

Following Germany, Brown traveled to Moscow and conducted a concert and broadcast of the Moscow Radio and Television Orchestra in the magnificent Hall of Columns. The program was a tribute (the first in Moscow for a living American Composer) to his friend, composer Kirke Mechem.

Like many musicians, Brown is a duplicate bridge “addict,” mixing that with tennis or travel. He lives in Santa Rosa and never misses a Symphony concert!

Photo by Karen Wyeth Photographic Art Santa Rosa, 1994